Toyota nearly doubled its March sales in Spain to 8,313, with the biggest boost coming from the revival of the holiday destination's rental car market.
March sales in Spain rose 65 percent to 100,632 vehicles while the rental car channel skyrocketed 266 percent to 24,786 units.
Toyota, which has been Spain's top-selling brand every month in the first quarter, increased its sales to private customers 99 percent in March and boosted its sales into the rental channel more than 700 percent to 1,473.
The top vehicle for Toyota in both sales channels was the C-HR compact SUV.
Peugeot was Spain's No. 2-selling brand in March with a volume of 8,203 cars, a gain of 73 percent on the same month last year.
Volkswagen Group Spanish subsidiary Seat rounded out the market's top three, with overall sales up 89 percent to 7,592 units. Of that total, sales into the rental channel accounted for 2,874 units last month, compared with just eight during the same month last year.
Seat had Spain's top-seller in the private and rental car markets: the Arona small SUV.
Despite the big increase in March, the rental channel was still 30 percent below its average during the period of 2016 through 2019, according to figures from market researcher Dataforce.
A newcomer in Spain's rental market is DR Automobiles. The Italian player that sells cars based on models from China's Chery had the No. 7-seller in Spain's rental market in the DR 4.0.
The compact SUV, which is based on the Chery Tiggo, passed some more common rental offerings such as the Fiat 500, Volkswagen T-Roc and the Seat Ibiza.
